Another Star
by Zarius
Summary: A fluffy piece inspired by the ending of the latest Doctor Who Magazine strip adventure "Mistress of Chaos", a story quite lush with Doc/Graham 'ship teasing. When an angel falls from the heavens, Graham's first instinct is to ask it how it feels to be alive


**DOCTOR WHO**

**ANOTHER STAR**

**WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

**Author's Note**: After all the crazy Doc/Graham stories I've put together over the last couple of years, it's nice to feel somewhat validated lately by the recent comic strip adventure in Doctor Who Magazine, "_Mistress of Chaos_" by Scott Grey. This adventure inspired me to write "_The Good Place_" a few months earlier, and now its conclusion has brought me back to The Doctor and Graham's now iconic adventure together within The Catastrophea. So, for your reading pleasure, enjoy my alternate take on their concluding moments.

* * *

"Off you go Graham" The Doctor said as the doorway opened, which would take any who stepped through it away from The Catastrophea, a dimension where she had recently combated unhinged versions of herself who went by the names Herald and Sanity.

"You first Doc" said Graham politely.

"I'm staying" she said.

Graham felt a slight jolt shoot through his nerves at this declaration.

"What are you talking about?" he said.

"I can't leave the Catastrophea Graham, I've created a temporal loop, if I escape, it'll be broken, events could change, and The Sanity might still be able to carry out her plan"

She looked at him with sincerity, and a hint of longing, knowing what she was giving up, knowing what she was letting go and leaving behind.

"I have to stay" she insisted.

Graham wasn't about to let what they had together go though, and refused to sever that connection for anything.

"Well then, I ain't going either" he said.

The Doctor's temper rose, _how dare he be this impossible, _she thought_._

"Don't be mad, get a shift on before it's too late"she insisted.

"Doc...all these months we've been travelling together, I've never once seen you do anything for yourself, I reckon that time owes you in a major way and this is the day you get to collect. We've been told that anything goes in the Catastrophea remember? There ain't any rules. So how's about you take advantage of this place, because you know what? You've earned it"

The Doctor locked her eyes with his, her features flush with pride and affection.

Graham wasn't quite finished just yet.

"There's another thing you ought to know, something I feel is important for the both of us. When you and Dogbolter up there knocked Sanity over the edge of that platform, and you tumbled towards the floor below...I was thinking, no, please no, not again, not like with Grace, don't be yet another star that fell from heaven.

What I felt when you made impact was what I can only describe as a great weight pressing against my heart, suddenly I cast my mind back to a clinic in Sheffield, charts, x-rays, other doctors with words of sympathy, telling me my days were so few...that it was up to my cancer to determine how long I lived, and not the days where I felt most alive, that's why the first gut instinct when I saw you were OK, that you'd merged with The Sanity and The Herald, was to ask just how you felt..."

"...And I told you how _alive_ I was" The Doctor finished for him.

"That's what we were all put here to feel Doc, if we can't, then why are we living? Why are we so in love? Well, with life anyway?" asked Graham.

The Doctor smiled, she could read between the lines fairly easily.

"You know I greatly admired someone in my eighth lifetime who often dreamed of holding back death, I asked her how it felt once, maybe I was asking the wrong person, or maybe the universe was pointing my future in your direction...you see, her name was Grace too" The Doctor replied.

Graham took a step closer to The Doctor, brushing her cheek tenderly with the tips of his right fingers, taking the time to absorb the sensation of the warmth from her lush bright cheeks.

The Doctor leaned forward, fully prepared to press her lips against his.

Their precious moment together, however, was swiftly interrupted when Dogbolter pushed her way through the pair of them and hastily ran through the doorway.

"She's in a hurry" Graham noted.

"She's in a rush, like we all are in life..." The Doctor remarked.

"Like I said Doc, it's time to collect on what time owes you...and in my experience; we're better off collecting it fast"

Hand in hand, they stepped through the door, out of the Catastrophea, back to the TARDIS, and towards tomorrow.


End file.
